Captain's Away! Chapter Thirteen
A Waking Nightmare
Captain’s Away! is a long form, weekly serial. New chapters come out every week (more or less). Comments and suggestions welcome as we go along.
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Previously in Captain’s Away!
Marie-Josée’s parents, Yolande and Bertrand Doucette, are trapped in an emergency bunker floating aimlessly in space with thirty-five other survivors. Her brother, Alain, is missing and presumed dead. But although Marie-Josée’s body is unconscious and in the emergency bunker with her parents, another part of her is having an entirely different experience. Unaware of the tragedy that has befallen the space station Northumberland and her parents and brother, Marie-Josée’s mind, it seems, has awoken elsewhere…
Chapter Thirteen
“A Waking Nightmare”
Marie-Josée allowed Saito to escort her out of the diagnostic room into a cramped, poorly lit passageway lined with metal shipping crates. A taupe grey passageway, she observed, having just used that colour on a painting recently. A terrific colour for an autumn sky. A lousy colour for a passageway.
Her body still felt huge. Not bloated or fat, just massive. She was unsteady on her feet and acutely self-conscious. She had cried briefly despite her best efforts not to and was afraid that it showed. She remembered her visage in the mirror but only partly: the tough features, the ugly scar from the top of her left forehead to just below her upper lip. She looked hideous. She wished she could look in the mirror again and study her appearance, puzzle out why she looked this way. She had to be dreaming. But it didn’t feel like a dream. She was all too alert—it was a waking nightmare.
Saito directed her through narrow passageways with one hand lightly on her arm. Marie-Josée had been on ships before, to visit other Akkadian space stations—she had even visited the Akkadian home planet, Miscouche, once—but she had never been on a ship like this one: compact, industrial, utilitarian. Messy. A ship built for war, she suspected, not comfort. Saito said nothing, only directed her through equipment rooms and past supply closets.
Most of the crew they saw were too far away and too busy to pay them much attention—Saito had no doubt been counting on that—but in one cramped intersection a man and a woman blocked their way. The man held a ladder while the woman worked on a panel in the bulkhead. Immediately, Saito tried to usher Marie-Josée back the way they had come, but it was too late. Holograms briefly appeared in the air above each of the crewmembers, identifying their name and rank. Though not common, Marie-Josée had encountered this practise before in civilian settings.
“Captain,” Crewman Third Class David Bourgeois said, executing a hasty salute. “It’s good to see you back on your feet.”
For a second Marie-Josée thought Bourgeois was addressing Saito. She wondered why he hadn’t told her that he was the captain. Then she realized that, no, like the man on the Northumberland and Saito himself, Bourgeois thought that she was the captain.
Her first instinct was to correct him. No, she wasn’t who he thought she was. She was Marie-Josée Doucette. This was all a big mistake. But because she had no idea what was going on she didn’t know what to say. Because she didn’t know what to say she didn’t say anything.
“The Captain is still on medical leave,” Saito said. “But she’s going to be fine.”
“Oh,” Bourgeois said, while Crewman Second Class Louise Lanoue stopped what she was doing and looked on. “Of course, Commander.”
“She’s just heading to her cabin to get some rest,” Saito added.
Marie-Josée nodded. “Yes, I’m—I’m going to get some rest now.”
The inanity of her words made her wince. Right then she wanted nothing more than to hide her ugly, bloated face.
Saito led her back the way they’d come, up a winding metal staircase, through an open hatch to another deck featuring faux-wood panelling that in Marie-Josée’s experience suggested living quarters and then a short way down another, similar passageway. They came to a door. The ship authorized their entry, and they stepped inside a spartan cabin: a bed, a closet, a chest of drawers. A couple of pre-fab chairs around a small round table, and not much more.
Saito slumped in one of the metal chairs. “We need to keep you out of sight until you’re more yourself. Which hopefully will be soon.”
Marie-Josée remained standing. She felt panicky, on the verge of hysteria. She thought she might break down any moment. “What did you do to me?”
Saito glanced up at her. “You really don’t remember anything?”
“I remember tons!” Including the terrible events of the last couple of days. Stuff she didn’t want to remember. “I just don’t remember any of this.” She waved a hand around her.
“All right. Do you remember the Field, at least?”
“The what?”
“Wow. It’s sure done a job on you.” Saito shook his head. “What terrible timing. Okay look. As you know—or would, normally—we sometimes test things here on the Beausoleil. A few months ago we acquired tech from the T’Klee.” He glanced up at her sharply. “You remember the T’Klee, right?”
“Of course!” Marie-Josée said indignantly. What kind of ignoramus did he think she was?
“Good.” He leaned forward. “This tech. The T’Klee call it the Field. It’s incredible. I still barely believe it myself.”
Marie-Josée had spent her entire life surrounded by technology. Like most people she pretty much took it for granted. “What’s so special about this stupid tech?”
“It can take the consciousness of one person—” Saito was looking straight at her, gauging her reaction “—and transfer it into someone else. Allowing them to be that person, for a while.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
“It’s not only possible, it’s the reason for your present predicament. At your orders, Doc transported your consciousness into the body of someone else and then back again.”
“You’re serious.”
Saito nodded.
“That’s horrible. Evil. Taking over other peoples’ brains. Especially my brain.”
“A necessary evil.” Saito was looking up at her, studying her, making her feel even more uncomfortable. “You are aware of the Realm’s recent attacks on Akkadian space stations, no doubt. That we’re now in a state of war?”
“Of course!”
“Then maybe you remember that the Realm is merciless. That we need to win this war, because if we don’t, the Realm will destroy Akkadia, and once it’s accomplished that, it will go on to destroy the Associated States, one by one. Everything that’s happened the last few days you yourself predicted.”
“I did?”
“You did. It’s one of the first things you told me when I first came on board six months ago. How’s your memory? Is it coming back yet?”
“It never left. Because you have it all wrong. I’m not your captain. I’m Marie-Josée. Marie-Josée Doucette.”
“Oh brother. What a disaster.” Saito cupped his face in his hands. When he looked up, he said, “Okay look. In your time as Marie-Josée Doucette, do you remember anything strange, that you can’t explain? That might sound consistent with what I’m telling you?”
Marie-Josée considered the question carefully. “When did your captain do this?”
“About a month ago.”
She had fallen and hit her head around that time. A coincidence, probably. Not wanting to give Saito ammunition, she said, “I don’t remember anything. I think you’re making all this up.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
Marie-Josée crossed her arms. Even that simple act felt strange to her—they were not her arms. Her hands felt alien to her, too large and awkward. “You sound completely bonkers to me. Look—if this Force of yours—”
“Field.”
“—can turn the captain into another person, can it turn another person into the captain? Accidentally, like?”
Saito looked skeptical. “Unlikely. We did our due diligence. We tested the Field multiple times before we tried it on you. It worked every time. Plus this is T’Klee technology. At least, that’s who we got it from.”
T’Klee products were legendary for their reliability.
“This one’s a dud. If I were you, I’d ask for your money back. And while you’re at it, send me back too.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes it is. Why isn’t it?”
“A lot of reasons. One of which is that this ship needs a captain.”
“What about you? You look captain-y.” Saito looked every inch what Marie-Josée imagined a captain should look like. Except—for the first time she realized how young and fresh-faced he appeared.
“I’m not—I can’t—” Saito closed his eyes. He opened them again and leaned forward. “The Beausoleil doesn’t need just any captain. It needs you.”
“Why?”
Before he could answer, a hologram of a middle-aged woman in uniform materialized before them. The Beausoleil’s avatar, Marie-Josée surmised.
“Commander, your presence is requested on the Bridge.”
Saito pushed his chair back and stood. “Given your current condition I think we can both agree that you’re not fit for duty. You’re already officially on medical leave. I suggest that you allow me to continue to command for the time being.” He searched Marie-Josée’s face as though expecting her to object.
Marie-Josée leaned back in her chair. “I don’t care about being in charge of your stupid ship. Just wake me up. Get me back in my own body!”
“Consent acknowledged,” the Beausoleil said.
Saito looked dismayed. “Maybe something in your cabin will trigger your memory. If not, you should at least be comfortable here. Are you going to be okay if I leave you alone for a few minutes?”
Marie-Josée tensed. Of course she wouldn’t be okay. She wasn’t okay to begin with. There wasn’t anything about this situation that was even remotely okay. For one thing, if she actually was the captain, then she was crazy and required medical care. If she wasn’t the captain (which she wasn’t) then something was seriously wrong and needed to be investigated.
She was also deeply afraid. She had been keeping the fear at bay through talking and walking, but it was there, lurking within. She was afraid that if left alone it might pounce and consume her. On the other hand, if she was going to break down she would prefer to do so alone.
“All right,” she said.
“Good. I’ll check in on you later.”
He left. The Beausoleil’s avatar vanished. Marie-Josée found herself alone.
She was trembling. She slumped onto the bed. How to tell if this was a dream? She rolled over and pinched herself. It hurt. It felt real. She felt a great chasm before her. It was all a big misunderstanding. Surely her mother would find her and fix this. But even if she did, Marie-Josée still wouldn’t be able to go home, because home didn’t exist anymore. Was there no end to the horrors of the last twenty-four hours?
More than anything else Marie-Josée wanted to cry, but the body she inhabited now (how crazy that sounded!) didn’t seem able to right now, so she lay down on the bed and tried to sleep. She hoped to God she’d wake up back in her own bed in Evangeline, and that everything that had happened over the last couple of days would turn out to be a big nightmare. But the bed was as uncomfortable as her thoughts, and instead of sleeping she lay awake staring at an unfamiliar overhead for what felt like centuries.
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This has been an installment of the ongoing serial Captain’s Away! A Strange Dimensions book.
Also by Joe Mahoney: A Time and a Place
An unlikely hero travels to other worlds and times to save a boy who does not want to be saved in this unique and imaginative adventure, by turns comic and tragic.
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